Thursday, November 1, 2018

As a social service
Organisation fighting to improve civic amenities, we often have to take up with authorities for
relaying roads as there many potholes, especially after rains. We have also been highlighting the cattle menace in
Triplicane – sometimes they are rather menacing and harm people. Apart from the bovine, there is stray dogs,
cats and sometimes horses too. There are
the domestic goats (Capra
aegagrus hircus) too. Nearer Vivekananda College in Mylapore one
commonly sights donkeys. The other day,
driving in mid-noon passing through Mandaiveli Bus stand, Devanathan Street –
nearer Mandaiveli Post Office – I was baffled by the lazy gait .... it was not
expected to be there on the middle of the road (I told myself – so did a couple
of baffled onlookers) - it was of ‘genus Dromaius’ - the largest bird native to
Australia and the only extant member of the genus – the Emu.

Some
would take pleasure in telling that only in India, one would find such stray
animals ambling across in roads and in foreign countries such things would not
occur. Here is something read on Daily
Mail of 11th May 2015.

Coned off roads are
the bane of millions of angry motorists furious by the gridlock and delays they
cause. Yet more than four out of ten lane closures on England’s motorways and
major roads are caused by vehicle break-downs – rather than roadworks – with
unsupervised children, thoughtless pedestrians, hooligans throwing objects and
people driving on the wrong side of the road - adding to the disruption, new
figures reveal today. By contrast
roadworks account for just 1 in 7 lane closures. Road safety experts said many
of the vehicle breakdowns are ‘avoidable’ and down to poor maintenance by
motorists putting their own lives and those of others at risk.

cows on the UK road.....

Overall there were
a total of 443,590 lane closures on motorways and primary A roads in England
last year– costing the economy up to £1billion a year, according to the results
of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the Institute of Advanced
Motorists road safety charity. A car
passing a pothole as they are putting pedestrians at risk as well as motorists,
according to an AA survey. The problem
is persisting on paths and pavements, with those walking the streets likely to
encounter almost four potholes every mile. Overall, the pothole situation has
eased slightly but local roads are still being blighted by an average of 6,25
potholes per mile, the survey showed.

Of the total lane
closures some 185,457 – or 41 per cent – were caused by vehicle breakdowns. Of
these 40,192 were in a ‘live lane’ with other moving traffic around it. By
contrast planned road-works accounted for 61,587, 14 per cent, of the total –
accounting for around 1 in 7 of the total. Obstructions on the motorways and
major roads account for 36,042 or 8 per cent, one in 12, of the total. Road
traffic crashes in which no-one was injured accounted for 29,656, or 7 per
cent, but a further 6,288 collisions did involve injuries.

The list of causes
of lane closures is mind blowing – they include : road works, vehicle
collisions, police checks, mindless pedestrians, burst or shed tyres; animals loose on road,
abandoned vehicles, suicide or attempts thereat, objects thrown on road... An
alarming 12,759 pedestrians walking on a live motorway lane or active A road
caused lane closures and 122 unsupervised children accounted for around 3 per
cent of all incidents. Other causes
listed included 3,990 animals loose on the network; 2,598 abandoned vehicles
and 6,742 burst or shed tyres.

Away
from all this melee, at St Lucia occurred this hippo crossing the road ! In another report on the same day, Daily
Mail states of the shock that residents of St Lucia had when a giant
hippopotamus strolled across the street and chased away children playing on the
other side.

They may look like
cute and harmless, but hippos are one of the most dangerous beasts in Africa,
killing an estimated 2,900 people a year. The incredible footage shows the semi-aquatic
mammal from the iSimangaliso Wetland Park calmly walk through parked cars in
the neighbouring town, unconcerned by the surprised locals fleeing from its
path. The crossing moment was captured by a driver who spotted the
gigantic beast wander in the car's path ahead. The mammal made a beeline for
the grassy verge on the other side of the road, where small children were
playing in a tree.

As the large hippo
reached the bank, metres away from the children, they swiftly fled from the
tree and ran towards parked cars. The
unexpected animal visitor appeared unconcerned by all the attention, and
continued on its exploration of the town. Although behaving rather tamely in the photo,
hippos, who can weigh up to 8000 pounds and can gallop at 29 kilometres per
hour, are often prone to aggressive behaviour, so it is lucky the children
escaped the scene. The video was
documented on the YouTube channel of the safari animal tracking app and
website, Tracking The Wild.

Town residents are
cautioned by signs to expect the occasional sighting of hippos, as the
bordering wetland park of iSimangaliso is home to approximately 800 hippos and
about 1,200 crocodiles. The warning signs state that particular caution should
be paid at night time, so the sight of one of the hippos on the high street at
3pm took the town by surprise.